


song prompt fills

by dizzy



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 22:01:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6347308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>It’s not a silly little moment,<br/>It’s not the storm before the calm.<br/>This is the deep and dying breath of<br/>This love that we’ve been working on. </p><p>
  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfFi4Q7ueA8">John Mayer - Slow dancing in a burning room</a>
</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. slow dancing in a burning room

**Author's Note:**

> It’s not a silly little moment,  
> It’s not the storm before the calm.  
> This is the deep and dying breath of  
> This love that we’ve been working on. 
> 
> [John Mayer - Slow dancing in a burning room](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfFi4Q7ueA8)

Darren’s lost track of how many times he’s felt like this was surely the last time he’d be welcomed back here. 

*

Pre-dawn light looks good on Chris.

They’re outside with the dog. Chris sits on the steps while Darren stands, walking around. Why is he walking? He doesn’t know. He just knows he’s tired of constant motion and unable to stop and it’s a weird fucked up battle of instinct and exhaustion that he feels like might just rip him in two sometimes.

Chris just watches him, and laughs a little when Darren almost trips over a tennis ball Cooper abandoned in the grass.

“Asshole.” Darren grins sheepishly.

The dog spots the tennis ball and woofs at Darren’s feet. Darren picks it up and tosses it for him.

“You’re going to distract him,” Chris says. “He’ll forget he’s supposed to be peeing.”

But he doesn’t look angry. He just looks fond and a little sleepy.

For just a moment, Darren finds peace in the stillness of the moment.

*

The floor boards are familiar under his bare feet.

The house smells like the pizza of six hours ago, like the clean cat litter Chris just put down, like the vanilla cookie candle burning in the hallway.

It’s the only place he’s felt like he could call home with any sense of regularity in the last decade of his life, but sometimes he stops and looks around and realizes how empty of himself it really is.

He’s not in any of the photos on the shelf.

His clothes are sparse in the closet and in the drawers.

He hasn’t read any of the books on the shelf. The movies weren’t plucked from store shelves or an amazon cart with his preferences in mind.

The suitcase in the hallway holds more of him than the rooms of this house.

*

He tries to say goodbye. It feels like it should be a poignant moment. “I just, I don’t know what’s gonna happen now,” Darren says. “I don’t know if I’ll-”

Chris just rolls his eyes and shoves Darren toward the door. “Don’t be melodramatic,” he says. “You know what’ll happen. You’ll go. You’ll schmooze. You’ll do things you regret. You’ll call me drunk at four am. You’ll buy another plane ticket home.”

Chris is bitter. He doesn’t make much secret of it. But he’s bitter in an almost accepting way, resigned to the cycles. Darren’s not sure what it’ll take to break this. He feels like he’s spent years convinced one more step and it’ll go away, but somehow Chris is here, somehow Chris puts up with his shit. Why?

When Chris kisses Darren, Darren leans into the kiss like it can save him. Chris doesn’t understand. Because he doesn’t get Darren? Because he doesn’t see what’s happening? Or because he’s got so much other shit going on in his life that he just stopped having the energy to give a fuck about this, them?

Darren isn’t sure he wants the answer.

(But Chris thinks of this as his home, too. It feels important, and Darren tucks it away inside to pull back out later and contemplate.)


	2. Between the Raindrops

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s a smile on my face  
> Knowing that together everything that’s in our way  
> We’re better than alright
> 
> [Lifehouse - Between The Raindrops](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgeA8frWjvQ)

“You don’t want to act more?” Darren asks Chris sometimes, like he feels an obligation to check on Chris.

Chris just shakes his head and smiles. “I’m happy,” he says, and he means it. He gets that Darren doesn’t get it, but it doesn’t make it any less true. The past years have been a revelation for Chris: he doesn’t need to act. Walking away from fame is the good decision, the right one for him.

He likes writing.

He likes staying at home with his dog and his cat.

He likes being the one that Darren comes home and tells his stories to.

He likes that he can go out now and he only gets recognized once in a while.

“If a good enough project comes along,” he sometimes says, but he’s not sure what would really be good enough to be better than this.

*

“You don’t want to take a break?” Chris asks Darren sometimes, because he’s not sure how anyone can go so nonstop barely with time to breathe.

He worries. So fucking what. He’s allowed.

“No,” Darren always says. “I go a little crazy when I don’t have much to do.”

Chris knows this. He understands how Darren operates. Those times between gigs have to be filled with something. It takes him out of the house a lot but Chris appreciates quality over quantity; they’re better together when they’re both doing well on their own. He’s learned the role of support and when to step in, when Darren needs a hand on his shoulder to guide him to bed so he doesn’t burn out, and when to let Darren hurdle full speed ahead into some new creative venture.

It used to be scary, thinking if he let Darren fly too high Darren might not come back. But he gets it now. They’ve grown older and wiser together, and through the growing pains of those few hard years he’s emerged with a new sense of faith and trust that Darren will always come back to him.

*

They don’t talk about coming out.

Amazingly, it’s an easy conversation to ignore.

“I fucked up too much,” Darren said, once. “I don’t know how to backtrack it.”

So they don’t. Darren goes out, squints at the flashes, smiles for the cameras, hugs the fans. He shows up alone for red carpets and evades questions about his life in interviews. Every new female lead brings a new barrage of rumors and he lets the float around him without acknowledgement. It works in a still slightly fucked up way, but he sleeps better at night knowing he’s not perpetuating it on purpose anymore.

When Chris goes on book tours, he goes alone. Fans don’t know his first phone call back in a hotel room is to Darren. They don’t know that it’s Darren back at home feeding the dog and the cat. They don’t know and they don’t need to know because the life Chris and Darren live is all their own to share or keep to themselves.


	3. All I Need

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s early in the morning,  
> I’m laughing at the sun.   
> My mirror disappoints me.  
> Am I the only one?
> 
> [All I Need by Awolnation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jUI-gYsUNo)

The first time they get drunk together, Darren’s pretty sure he proposes.

Chris just laughs. Darren still holds that laugh in his mind, a strangely vivid slice of something from an otherwise hazy memory. He hopes it never fades, because there’s something strongly comforting about recalling Chris with pink cheeks and his hair mussed over his forehead and those eyes so sharp and clever tracking every word out of Darren’s mouth.

Chris is the smartest drunk Darren’s ever known. He slurs his words but not the meaning behind them, and Darren falls hopelessly in love with his intelligence before it occurs to him to even want anything else.

It’s the night Chris tells him the story of coming out. Stories, really; there’s never only just one. He tells Darren about the schoolyard horror stories. He tells Darren about the way his mother never acted any differently but cut him off every time he tried to say the words. He tells Darren about the talk show host who just assumed and his impulsive, terrified, teenage self deciding he was tired of all the bullshit.

Darren has no stories. That chapter of his book hasn’t been written yet, but as he listens to Chris talk he begins to imagine how they might one day go.

“You’re the bravest person I know,” Darren says.

Chris shrugs. “I didn’t have much choice. People knew, anyway. I just looked stupid hiding it.”

“I’m not out,” Darren says.

It’s the closest he’s come in years to saying the words. He’s let people draw their own assumptions but he’s never been in a position where he had to confirm or deny.

He’s never wanted to overshare. He didn’t need the labels, not for himself. They weren’t important. But suddenly he wants to just - he wants Chris to know. He wants to know Chris knows, so that whatever happens… it means something.

“Maybe one day we’ll get married,” he says. “Then that’s how everyone will know. About me, I mean.”

Chris laughs, sharp and shocked. When he recovers from gaping openly at Darren’s words he says, “I think you’re skipping a few steps there, Romeo.”

Darren turns his head to look at Chris. The room is spinning and Chris’s eyes are very blue. “Sorry, man. I’ll back up. Do it right.”

Another laughter, softer and sweeter. “Honey, you’re not even going to remember you said that in the morning.”

And in the morning, sober and cloaked in guilty doubt, he pretends he doesn’t.


	4. Cradlesong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the world can be so cruel  
> but i will sing for you
> 
> Rob Thomas - Cradlesong

“You don’t sing much anymore,” Darren says.

His head rests on Chris’s stomach, Chris’s fingers caught between his. It’s idle affection, idle touching, and those surely aren’t butterflies from such a gentle touch after such a long time, are they?

(They are.)

“I sang enough,” Chris says. “To last me a lifetime.”

Years of singing, locked into little booths with the words on a sheet in front of him. Years and years of performing on demand and forcing the emotions he just didn’t feel.

Darren finds freedom in singing. Chris finds it the source of unpleasant memory. They’re different, and that’s okay.

“I miss hearing you, though,” Darren says.

Chris pulls a hand away to drag fingertips over Darren’s cheek. He feels the beard there, soft and bristly at the same time. He draws the touch up to where the beard stops, gentle over the laugh lines around Darren’s eyes, the ones that weren’t there all those years ago when they first met. Chris wants to think a few of them are his to claim. They really do make each other laugh. It doesn’t matter if no one else is usually around to see it, it’s still true.

“Catch me in the shower tomorrow morning.” Chris smiles indulgently. “I’ll do my best Gaga for you.”

“Catch you in the shower?” Darren wiggles his eyebrows. Chris laughs and smooths his weird, wild hair back from his forehead. He likes the weight of Darren against him like this. It’s grounding. Darren’s here. They’re both here. They’re okay. “I can do that.”

“Perfect,” Chris says.

“You already knew that,” Darren reminds him.

“I did,” Chris says. “I know you and your tawdry ways.”

“And you put up with me anyway.” It’s two shades of intonation away from being a question.

“Yeah.” Chris squeezes Darren’s fingers with the hand that Darren’s still holding onto. “You’re not half bad.”

Darren turns lightening fast, straddling Chris on all fours. The mattress bounces with the movement. “You’re just in it for the blowjobs aren’t you?”

Chris cups Darren’s face, a hand on each cheek. He loves this face, maybe, just a little bit. “Absolutely. Only reason.”

Darren hums a little. “I can deal with that.”

Chris makes him come down all the way for the kiss, close mouthed and smiling.


	5. Wait For It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He takes and he takes and he takes  
> And he keeps winning anyway  
> He changes the game  
> He plays and he raises the stakes
> 
> \- [Wait for it (Hamilton)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReTP6x_sDiM)

Darren is an immigrant with nothing to lose. Darren is insufferable, brilliant, charismatic, and the bane of Chris’s existence. He sweeps into Chris’s life and with what appears to be almost no effort has more friends, more allies, more success. He stands with ease where Chris has to scrape and claw for footing.

That’s surely why wanting him hurts so much.

*

It takes him a while to realize Darren probably isn’t going away. Even with physical distance between them the letters come regularly, and Chris hates himself for keeping every single one even though he can’t bring himself to respond.

*

“I have nothing to lose,” Darren once said to him. “Makes life easier.”

Chris hates him for it. He hates that stupid smug face. Hates it so much he just wants to - just wants to grab him - wants to slam Darren against a wall, and -

(Hates him so much.)

“You’ll learn one day,” Chris sneers. Chris would know. He’s got plenty to lose, all the responsibility his parents left him. He has to succeed for himself, for his sister, for his pride.   
“You can’t escape responsibility forever. One day you’ll have something you care enough about, a job or - or. A family, even.”

Darren laughs and laughs, like Chris just told the funniest joke he’s ever heard.

*

They get drunk together once in a while.

Darren always plies him with drinks. “I like you best when you forget to hate me,” he tells Chris.

He always smiles like it doesn’t bother him at all.

He has it all wrong, though. Chris hates him.

“We’d be fantastic,” he says to Darren one night, the liquor burning in his throat almost as much as the desire in his gut. “You know, we would.”

Darren stares at him like he’s suddenly something all knew. It’s probably the first time Chris has ever seen him at a loss for words.

It’s a shame he’s too drunk to remember the small victory later on.

*

Darren shows up on his doorstep. The hour is late enough to defy propriety but still he stands there, hair a mess of curls and eyes wild.

It’s not actually a strange look on him. Darren thrives on three am revelations and operates on the assumption that everyone else should be eager to forgo sleep in favor of listening to him spew out thoughts no one else can even follow along with half th etime.

“I have something to lose.” Darren looks at him. Chris looks closely and maybe it isn’t the familiar mania there, maybe it’s something different. “I figured it out. I know what’s important to me. And it’s terrifying. I don’t like it at all.”

Chris closes his eyes. If he could close his ears he would, too. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you told me,” Darren insists. “You said I would - and I did. I figured it out.”

It’ll be a girl, he’s sure. Darren will have found a girl. Someone with pretty eyes and soft curves who will give him every kind of domestic fantasy that he grew up pining for, everything his own fuck-off of a father and poor sick mother denied him in his own upbringing.

Chris’s gut churns. He thinks if he made the excuse of being sick, it wouldn’t be too much of a lie. Why does he need to show up here just to tell Chris? Does he know he’s driving the knife in deeper?

Maybe it’ll be a relief, Chris thinks in desperation. Maybe he’ll finally be able to get Darren’s face out of his head, to forget that voice in his ear no matter who he’s really with.

Then there’s a hand grabbing his and Darren is far too close. A breath catches in Chris’s throat.

“Chris.” Darren says. And then he’s hauling Chris forward into his arms and he tastes like smoke and sweetness when they kiss.

*

Chris has been with men before, and he knows from the moment he has Darren stretched out under him that Darren, for all his curiosities, has not.

But Darren takes to it like he does everything else, with the joy of learning and dedication to mastery.

In the morning he expects Darren to go but Darren surprises him at every turn, stealing sunrise kisses and helping himself to bread and jam from Chris’s cupboard and walking around naked without an ounce of shame.

Darren still talks too much and finds humor in the strangest things and Chris is still surly in his confusion and he’ll need about half a lifetime to figure out what this even is, but Darren is in between his sheets and his stomach makes Chris want to dance with a foreign kind of joy and this feels like the something he’s been waiting for.


End file.
